How Do I Do This ?

[Jane.l]

So major miracle I have built a trusting relationship with my T. To do this I had to take down the barriers and guards and let him in which made me feel ridiculously vunerable but I thought he was worth the risk, he went the extra mile for me and I got through hell and high water with him guiding me through a very difficult time last year. So through all that not surprisingly I feel a strong emotional bond to him , he has kept me here - now this is good and helpful in session when I need to feel that way otherwise I couldn't open up and trust him but it's extremely uphelpful the rest of the time.

I guess what I am asking is how do you get the right balance between being connected and attached to your T and being able to cope without them between sessions ?

I tend to think and feel in very black and white terms which probably doesn't help . I also feel he is my only stability - partly because he is my only support but also because the way I feel about everything else changes manically for no reason all the time - so I don't know my up from my down but the sense of security I get from him doesn't change - my appreciation of him doesn't change I am just not good at getting from one session to the next without his reassurance .

 

[scout86]

I am just not good at getting from one session to the next without his reassurance .

I think MY T would suggest that you add "yet" to that sentence. That day will come, I'm sure, it's just further down the road. If he's as good as he sounds like he is, sooner or later he'll start working on that too. I would think that a good therapist is like a good parent. The desired end result is an empty nest. As soon as possible, but not sooner.

 

[anthony]

Healing is a journey, things don't all come at once. You've discovered a new issue, and you're focused on how to change that from a negative to a positive. So... what can you do to help yourself get from one session to another?

I have to ask... do you have feelings for your therapist? Beyond just the therapeutic relationship that is.

 

[Jane.l]

@scout86 good point thank you .

@anthony to be totally honest I am not sure ..... as in - I am not sure what feelings are part of the therapy process - and which might not be . I do a lot of pulling him close and pushing him away because I am freaked out that I 'feel' anything . We do 'click' as you do with some people - I am not sure what it is that makes you connect with some people and not others . I think the main thing with him is that I feel that he 'gets me '. I am attracted to him but I don't think it's sexual , well there might be a little ,maybe , but I am sure that's not what I want from him or maybe I am in total denial !?! I am confused that's for sure - sorry this post is a total mish mash - everything is easier without feeling stuff urgh - oh god what if I have the wrong feelings for him ?? what the hell do I do about that ??? - feeling slightly freaked out !

 

[anthony]

I am confused that's for sure

And that's the exact issue as to why you're not coping well between your sessions without him, in that you can't define for yourself the therapeutic relationship that is, versus what your starting to feel, thus desire some bond with him. That is dangerous, and that is why I asked the question, because that is typically why a person gets into this exact issue. It feels like dating... you want to say goodbye, yet you want to be in contact and can't wait to see them again.

This is something that is your issue, and you need to get your brain right and control your feelings... this is not dating, it is therapy. He is there for you in a false environment... this relationship isn't a real relationship. It stops at the therapists door... starts there too, as you enter.

You have to accept that your therapy is a false environment. The entire thing is structured to make you feel comfortable, relaxed and engaged with the therapist. Everything is structured to be safe and invite you to share your inner most secrets.

That is not real... it is a structured environment and structured professional relationship. Mish mash has to be controlled on your behalf.

 

[Jane.l]

Omg never really looked at it that way before - but I think you are right that probably is why I struggle between session .

But also as much I as understand structure and boundaries - the idea that the whole thing is false and not real makes it feel unsafe and my T just someone else who pretends to care but actually doesn't give a crap

My brain is just mish mash - usually with quite a lot of mush . Maybe I should just knock the whole thing on the head , I am done fighting everything I just want don't to be here to be honest .

 

[anthony]

If therapy is helping you, then it is viable. I didn't say your therapist doesn't care, but they certainly shouldn't care beyond a professional level, and I would hope he doesn't. It is normal for clients to fall in love with their therapist / get emotions and clouded judgement, thinking there is some relationship connection happening, when that is all false... it is the therapeutic connection, nothing more. It is needed for therapy, but people are human, thus they can confuse that with feelings, which aren't present.

 

[Jane.l]

Thanks for coming back to me - I get what you are saying - I think I need to try and get myself together and have an honest look at what the heck is going on for me on this and if I can straighten it out . Last summer everything was so dramatic and desperate maybe in his attempt to pull me through it boundaries got slightly blurred and he allowed me to become overly reliant on him and now I have a major problem not relying on him . I wish it wasn't so freaking messed up I can hardly get from one day to the next at the moment - not because of him but just having a lot of ptsd symptoms and getting massive crashing lows but yeah this issue is adding to that.

 

[digger]

He is there for you in a false environment... this relationship isn't a real relationship.

Okay, so I had the same instant panic reaction@Jane.l had there and went instantly to assuming that meant that the whole thing was fake and unreal, based on lies, my therapist doesn't actually give a shit blahblahblah.... Im thinking the word false is perhaps quite a dangerous one here! For someone with massive trust issues, and/or who already finds it difficult to identify whether people are genuine or not anyway.

I agree to a point, but actually I think it needs reframing a bit. The relationship you have with your therapist is a real one, it is not the relationship that is false, it is the idea that it is, or can be, more than a therapeutic relationship that is false.

It is a false environment in some senses, but understanding/accepting it as such actually makes it a real environment for working on therapy in. It is not the same as other environments you will find yourself in day to day, but that doesn't make it, or your therapist, or his commitment to working with you fake.

I think when you don't really understand the 'rules' around relationships and have difficulty being able to work out safe people from unsafe ones, then the idea of people being false is pretty unsettling. It is for me anyway. I said to my counsellor a while ago that sometimes I felt like I was being tricked into talking when I was there, and I guess that's where that comes from.

We have all sorts of different relationships with different people who have different roles in our lives. They have different rules, there are different boundaries involved, but it doesn't make one real and one fake, they are just différent types of relationships.

Sorry this is a bit disjointed.

 

[Jane.l]

Thank you digger you have stopped a little of my panic - I have major issues with people being false and massive anxiety with people not being what they appear to be.

Trust is a pretty fragile thing it doesn't take much for me to feel its unsafe .

I totally understand the boundaries of therapy and I don't want to step outside of those - I need him as my T and that is what I value him for - we do interact and communicate well in a social way because we have to do a lot of informal chit chat and messing around to get me to relax enough to talk about the tough stuff - and I don't feel that's fake we genuinely like each other - I don't think that's a bad thing - but although I understand and want to maintain the confines of it being what it is I do find it hard to be with out his reassurance in the week , I always thought that was down to abandonment issues but maybe it's more complicated than that.

 

[digger]

but although I understand and want to maintain the confines of it being what it is I do find it hard to be with out his reassurance in the week , I always thought that was down to abandonment issues but maybe it's more complicated than that.

I have a theory on this, but I'm not sure how well I'll communicate or if it applies to your situation too. For me, all this stuff in therapy is pretty much new territory for me. The new skills I'm learning, the understanding of why things happen, what I feel etc... these are all new connections to me. We learn things a lot through repetition I think, or that's part of my understanding of how the brain works - connections are made and then are strengthened through repeated use. I can understand something in the therapy room. The theory makes sense to me, when I am outside of that between sessions I have to learn how it fits in on a practical level. Then I will often feel unsure of it, if I understood right. Could I do with reassurance? - absolutely I could.

I don't actually have contact with my T between sessions, but I could sure use her sometimes when it comes to 'real' life situations for reassurance that I've got it right. Do I want/need that reassurance? - Absolutely. And I think that's natural. I am relearning pretty much everything and I have massive issues around getting things 'wrong'.

At the moment we're on an unscheduled break. It was supposed to be two weeks, we're now up to six and I'm struggling. It's an unavoidable situation, but what I think what I'm realising is that she reinforces stuff with me week on week and I'm not yet at a point where it comes naturally to me to be able to reinforce these things for myself. She reminds me to do things week on week that it doesn't come naturally yet for me to remind myself. She reassures me about things that I'm not confident enough to reassure myself of. That would be the end goal, to be my own counsel, but I'm not there yet and shouldn't expect myself to be because I'm still learning.

So, yeah, I think feeling the need for reassurance in this stuff is natural. How you manage that is for you. I try to figure out what she would probably say if I asked her and that usually helps. I also use this site for reassurance between sessions. Sometimes I will thrash it out with myself in my diary to figure out whether I've got it 'right' or not, or if my thinking is skewed or not. Often responses in my diary from other members will also help me work those things out, either a 'yes, that's okay' or a 'you might want to look at your thinking on that' or 'you might want to go easier on yourself on that'.

I don't think your needing reassurance is necessarily a sign that you are over attached or over dependant (although I think it can easily go that way with some people). I think it's a sign that you need reassurance because you're not yet at a point where you can confidently reassure yourself. And that's okay.

 

[Jane.l]

Thank you for taking the time to write that post , it makes sense , so much of what I thought I knew has been turned on its head in therapy and there is so much to learn and take in. It also takes me ages to process things we work on in session so quite often I have to do a lot of thinking before I work out what I feel about it and it's then that I am looking for the reassurance or if I am working through stuff that brings up a lot of shame and guilt I need to know that he's still ok with me.

We used to email a lot but have managed to cut it back to - I can email but he won't respond unless I
Specify that I really need him to and I only use that if things get really bad .

It's not so much that I can't wait to see him again - sometimes I really don't want to see him it's more he is like my safety net , my sounding board and I like feeling I have something solid and stable - last year felt like the world almost stopped I lost everything and he was the only thing still there, still standing next to me , still saying you can do this I believe in you . So maybe I have set him in the role of protector - saviour type and maybe I need to work out how to readjust that to me being protector/saviour - now I don't really know how to do that , do I need to do something to make that happen or will that happen anyway if I get stronger and get some of this tough shit done in therapy ?